Chris Dwyer - 80 marathons
/CHRIS DWYER (Rejoover & Syd Strider - long time runner & long time friend)
(sub note - Chris & Greta have known Chris Dwyer aka Super Star for many many years and we hope he doesn’t mind us saying he is turning 70yrs this year - a mega happy birthday Supe!)
80 MARATHONS, OF WHICH OVER 50 ARE SUB 3 HOURS
P.B. 2:38:30
“My father introduced me to sailing at the age of 12. This was to become my passion for the next 21 years.
From the age of 18 I sailed a single person boat and was fortunate to represent NSW at the Australian Titles. You first have to be selected for NSW to compete at the Australian Championships and selection trials were held in the last week in October. 9 seniors who were 18+ years and 3 juniors under 18 were selected. I managed to see all capital cities in Australia except Darwin, as each city got to host every 6 years.
Morton Bay in Brisbane got the opportunity to host the world Titles in January 1976. I made it my mission from the 1st December 1974 to try to make these World Titles. Not only did you have to make sure you had a fast boat, you had to be very fit and muscular to compete at a high level, so for 12 months there was a lot of running, strength training, pumping iron 3 times a week. I also had a wooden frame which trained the precise muscles for core strength, quads and stomach muscles. I did 1500 – 2000 sit-ups on 5 out of 7 days a week. I made the team and this was the highlight of my sailing career.
At the age of 29, the design of the boat was undergoing radical design changes. A lot of my close sailing friends moved on to another class of boat. I stayed on for one more year, but with a young family, running my own business plus having to keep the boat tuned, it was becoming a struggle to get the time to compete at the standard I would have liked. I started to sail a 2 person boat but my heart was not in it.
I retired from sailing at the age of 33 and have not gone back. My time was up. So what next?
I had already run two marathons, the Harbord Diggers at Manly to Mona Vale
return 3 hours 12 minutes and Holsworthy Army Base 3 hours 25 seconds. Bugger!! So if I was going to run another marathon it was going to be a sub 3hr, so I had a few runs with Sydney Striders.
The first step was to join. I did this in 1983. Next I had to drop weight. I was 74kg’s when I retired from sailing. My third marathon was Canberra, the first of 12 in Canberra. I weighed in at 61kg’s and did 2 hours 51 minutes.
Years went on. Some years I would do 4 marathons per year. In 1993-94 I met Peter Truscott, only on a very casual basis as Peter ran at 6:20am, I was 6:30am. Yes, Striders did have a 6:30am group then. I think it was in 1995 Chris Truscott joined Striders and there were a lot of colourful adjectives and nouns exchanged between us, but it wasn’t long before Chris, with his youth and quality on his side left me in his wake. But a friendship had been formed. We started training, touring and partying together. Until I met the Truscotts I didn’t know red wine existed, but I do now.
Chris, Peter and another friend Andrew Gibbons and I did the Berlin Marathon in 2001, in which Chris recorded his PB 2 hours 28 mins. So that night we celebrated at Octoberfest. What a night! We had such a great time we went back the next year.
I have seen most of the world by running marathons. I have I think been able to have success at this distance because of the Striders 6:30am group which was tough. My favourite workout when in serious training for a marathon was every second Wednesday 24k in no more than 100 minutes.
So I kept on running with Peter and Chris and in 2003 was introduced to Greta while helping out at the 6ft Track. It was easy to tell by his happy face that Chris has found his princess.
I have had many great memories of people I have met running marathons and of places all over the world. A couple of sad memories too.
Sad Moments
1. I am not trying to be ostentatious but this is what happened. I had my office in Redfern in the 80’s and was a member also of City Tatts where we had a lunchtime running group. Most runs were around the Botanical Gardens. We would do some Opera House steps then hammer home around the water and all meet back at Hyde Park. There were about 15 runners and most ran at their own pace but 5 of us were in a lead pack. After about 3 km this was down to myself and another person who was a good friend. The pace was hard but manageable for me but my friend was blowing. I said “you’ve gotta slow down” but he didn’t. After another 500 metres I said “you’ve gotta stop or you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.” He slowed, I kept going and waited at Hyde Park. No-one showed up. I thought I had gotten the instructions wrong, but no, he did have a heart attack and went to Heaven 3 days later. We found out later he was diagnosed with 85% blocked arteries.
2. I had a friend by the name of John Sauer. He was more of a 5k and 10k runner with a PB high 32 mins. We often did hard 10k runs at Parramatta Park where I did most of my running. John would only do 1k warm-ups then straight into 3 laps which was 10k’s, always on the road, while I would do 85% on dirt. Often I would say “John, you can’t keep running so much on the road, your knees will go,” and they did. He required surgery then spent some time in the wilderness. John liked to have a few beers and while he was not running put on weight. My last session with John was supposed to be 10 x 600 metres with 100 metre float. The first 3 were smash, smash and smash. Number 4 saw John peeling off at 300 metres, number 5 and John pulled up at 200 metres, his knee gone. That was the last time I trained with John and there were no more races for John. He had just started to run and walk until one Sunday night he had a massive heart attack and went to Heaven 6 hours later. It took a long while to get accustomed to the fact I would never see John again while training at Parramatta Park.
Great Moments
1. My first of 15 Berlin Marathons was in 1989, the re-unification marathon. It was my first big city marathon. The atmosphere was electric with spectators along all the 42k’s.
2. My second highlight was my first Venice Marathon. I was, I think, in the best possible race condition and looking maybe for a PB but this all changed 10 mins before the start when a fierce storm front came through with torrential rains and 70k winds. I knew there were some canal bridges to run over but 13 was a surprise. Running over the pontoon on the Grand Canal took my breath away. I was standing in a queue when I was pulled out by race officials and informed my 2hrs 41 mins had won the UNICEF Award being the First Runner Over 40 Male that was not Italian.
3. The 2003 Berlin Marathon with Chris and Peter Truscott and Andrew Gibbons was a great holiday and Chris and Andrew had PB’s on the day. We went to Octoberfest the same night. Wow, what a time.
So now at my age if I wake up with a pulse it’s a good day and when I come to C.P. and survive Rejoov boss’ instructions it’s a great day.
Thank You
Chris Dwyer”
